NEW ARRIVALS

Backwoodz Studioz is excited to announce a new album from Kenny Segal and K-the-I??? Genuine Dexterity is the title of this record, but it is also an equally apt description of their artistic skill sets; Kenny’s ability to tailor his production to each project is well established, and K-the-I???’s acrobatic style easily renders dense rhymes weightless. Together they have made an album that pogo sticks over genre conventions to deliver a daring and immersive listening experience. “Genuine Dexterity is an album made in order to display my many facets, whether it be my mood, growth or the adventures that formulate my present-day outlook,” the rapper explains, “Letting everything come naturally to me and to never force the envelope. It’s also about the direction the universe is heading towards whether I like it or not” Rapper/Producer Kiki Ceac, best known by his stage name K-the-I???, was at the forefront of the mid-00’s experimental hip-hop wave that laid the groundwork for much of the alternative rap music that followed. Originally from Cambridge, Massachusetts, Kiki moved to Los Angeles around the same time that fellow East Coast transplant Kenny Segal was beginning to make noise under the Project Blowed umbrella. Despite moving in the same circles for many years, they had never worked together until Genuine Dexterity- which, ironically enough, came about after Kiki moved back to the East Coast. “Sometimes a vocalist will just spark a whole wave of creativity in me, and that’s what happened with Kiki,” Segal says, “last year I sent him two beats to use on a different album and when he sent the songs back it was obvious we had something special and needed to do more” Genuine Dexterity features Armand Hammer, Open Mike Eagle, ShrapKnel, Fatboi Sharif, Self Jupiter, and Jesse the Tree but K-the-I??? is the undisputed ringmaster of this circus. It has been a decade since Kiki’s last album and yet he has returned to the game at the height of his powers. He has always been an unorthodox lyricist and remains so here, but in his time away from the spotlight, his style has grown in many ways. “Maybe I’m calmer nowadays, I don’t feel the need to ALWAYS shout like I used to. My vocabulary has grown, and my flow is more polished,” Kiki writes, before adding that one thing that has not changed is the intricacy of his writing. Meanwhile, Kenny Segal’s customized soundscapes whisk Kiki’s styles to places they haven’t been before, and he never fails to find a pocket in which to ply his craft. Genuine Dexterity, if you will.

Lady Wray makes her highly anticipated return with Cover Girl, her third album on Big Crown Records. The album opener “My Best Step” says it all, “my next step is my best step”, and indeed she is taking her artistry to a new high and making the best music of her life. The celebratory Cover Girl takes listeners on a free-spirited joyride glittered with ‘60s and '70s-inspired soul and disco, ‘90s hip-hop and R&B, and perhaps the most defining element, gospel. Following the healing journey that was 2022’s Piece of Me, Nicole has performed on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, NPR’s Tiny Desk, and toured the world. After this period of growth, Lady Wray is now ready to let her hair down and embrace all of what life has to offer. Reunited with producer Leon Michels (Norah Jones / Clairo / El Michels Affair) for the record, the outcome is effortless and undeniable, a reflection of their longtime collaboration that extends over a decade.

“I've gravitated more towards love and self-care with this album. Piece of Me was realizing that I was going to be a mother, and all those feelings were on my heart,” Lady Wray says. “Now I'm able to sit back and be a real boss. I got my career, my motherhood, and my marriage by the horns. I've grown into this more self-aware and beautiful flower for Cover Girl.” With an almighty voice, soul-stirring lyrics, and a magnetic personality, the singer-songwriter reflects her appreciation for her family, her faith, and her renewed love for herself—all of which drive her new record.

Lead single “You’re Gonna Win” is a report to the dance floor, feel good banger. Cole lets loose while naming and claiming her power “I do not care who came before me, after me there will be none” as she likens her company to winning the lottery. The Fabulous Rainbow Singers choir joins on the chorus taking the whole affair to church and putting it next to the finest gospel-disco records ever pressed. “Be a Witness” is a funky, mid-tempo powerhouse that would make Prince proud. Nicole finds the perfect groove over punchy drum machines and infectious synthesizers, singing about a love destined to happen, and spreading the good vibes to everyone in earshot. Cover Girl’s title track is one of the album’s most vulnerable moments. Lady Wray delivers a show-stopping performance over the stripped down track as she details her journey to finding herself again: “I lost myself trying to please someone else / I want to be me again.” The title stems from a childhood nickname she earned for her consistently manicured style. Lady Wray explains. “As I grew up and got into the music business, I lost that happy part of me. I see that happiness in my daughter, who’s just beautiful, talented, and smart. ‘Cover Girl’ is me going back to that little girl. It’s about getting back to loving yourself and healing.” Similarly on “Where Could I Be,” she reclaims the happiness and sense of identity that she lost focus of through life’s struggles. Nicole gushes about her love and respect for her marriage on “Best For Us” & “Hard Times”, both acknowledging the imperfection and referencing the strength and resilience of true love. She sings to her daughter on “Higher,” teaching her how to love and be loved, encouraging her to be confident and persistent.

Lady Wray was born to sing, sharing her soul and her life with us through her music. She has amassed a diehard worldwide fanbase with her relatable messages and incomparable voice. Whether singing of her struggles or strengths, there’s a comfort that comes from the way she makes us know we are not alone in any of it. Nicole Wray is inspiring and uplifting. Having been through a lot, she’s taken all of it and made herself a better person and a better artist.

“You need to rule your own world. Don't let anybody get in your way. You rock with your dreams until the wheels fall off,” Lady Wray says. “That's what I've been doing with my career since 1998. I know who I am and what I bring to the table. It's been a heck of a journey, and I feel so happy to be making the best music of my life.”

2025 has been a big year for Drop Nineteens. They finally officially released their long lost pre-curser to 1992’s Delaware, the demo collection 1991. These releases comprise the band’s early run and as Pitchfork noted in their review of both albums earlier this year, “established Drop Nineteens’ reputation as leading lights of U.S. shoegaze.”

The band follows up the release of the 1991 LP with their first ever 7”, White Dress b/w White Dress (demo). The 7” features the band’s cover of the Lana Del Ray classic in two versions. It comes on the anniversary of the band’s digital release of “White Dress.”

This is an edition of 500 black 7”s and 200 white 7"s and is sure to be a collectable item for fans of shoegaze and Drop Nineteens alike.

In 1982, La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela used two tambouras to create a document that will go down in history. They are also a strong tribute to their Guru = Pandit Pran Nath. The thick drones of the tambouras create a moiré-like effect, and the meditative state itself is brought out in this highly pure meditative work. There are many sources of minimal and drone music, but I've never heard anything that brings about such a spiritual transformation. It's like something that's been flowing for thousands of years, and it's in a perfect state that can't be cut down or added to. The 44-page booklet is included.

Ayalew Mesfin stands aside the likes of Mulatu Astake, Mahmoud Ahmed, Hailu Mergia and Alemayehu Eshete as a legend of 1970s Ethiopia. Mesfin’s music is some of the funkiest to arise from this unconquerable East African nation.

Mesfin’s recording career, captured in nearly two dozen 7” singles and numerous reel-to-reel tapes, shows the strata of the most fertile decade in Ethiopia’s 20th century recording industry, when records were pressed constantly by both independent upstarts and corporate behemoths, even if they were only distributed within the confines of this East African nation.

Though Mesfin was forced underground by the Derg regime that took control of Ethiopia in 1974, he has returned almost 50 years later with this triumphant set albums – the first time that his music has been presented in this form.

These albums give us a chance to discover a rare and beautiful moment in music history, in anthologies built from Mesfin’s uber-rare 7” single releases and from previously unreleased recordings taken from master tapes. Each individual album contains an oversized 11” x 11” 16 page book that tells the story of modern Ethiopian music and Mesfin’s role within it. An OBI wrapped “box set” of all five albums is available at a discounted price. The box set only contains one booklet.

Good Aderegechegn (Blindsided By Love) gives us a chance to discover a rare & beautiful moment in music history, in an anthology built from his uber-rare 7” single releases. Contains an oversized 11” x 11” 16 page book that tells the story of modern Ethiopian music and Mesfin’s role within it.

An overwhelming display of spiritual drone minimalism, marking the poised pinnacle of a true master at the forefront of the contemporary scene! Japanese sound artist FUJI|||||||TA—renowned for collaborations with Boredoms and Akio Suzuki—returns with his latest work Live at Epsilon Spires, now issued on vinyl via Feeding Tube. Centered around his self-built pipe organ, the sound unfolds with a purity that transcends mere experimental music, resonating like prayer or the trembling of the atmosphere itself. Within its stillness and resonance lies a profound sense of time and expansive space, carrying a sublimity comparable to historical masterpieces such as Sōmei Satō’s Mandala / Sumeru or Ellen Fullman’s In The Sea. A crystalline current of soundscape, this recording leads the listener to the very roots of sound itself.

Soft piano notes kiss trippy electronic tones: “Kossaiko”, the only collaborative record that japanese piano player Saiko Tsukamoto and globally known electronic producer Kuniyuki Takahashi ever produced, is an unmissable profound soft classic music burner.

Together they composed and produced an eight-chapter strong deeply absorbing narrative, whose enthralling story arc dives profound into authentic drama zones, that sound like they jumped right out of a Claude Sautet movie.

Originally released in 2007 as cd only, the perfectly put together longplayer now enters the world for the first time in a vinyl edition that is tragically hip. deeply starry-eyed composi-tions full of minimalistic piano melodies that creep, twist, and dance around unobtrusive electronic notes who never call the tune, but always elevate the spectacle into higher elec-tronic spheres.

In the center of each between five- and nine-minutes long composition is the piano play of Saiko, gently hitting the keys, giving space to each note to vibrate in an endless “Pauline Oli-Veros” way, drifting until the very last sound vanish. around them, Kuniyuki plays his charming electronic tricks, opening the space for tones that sometimes pulsate, sometimes flow the ambient way.

Furthermore, occasionally a guitar notes pop up or accordion melodies cover the sorcery with a severely romantic veil.

Modern classical music, that has no fear of electronic meltdowns, that embraces digital tones while staying organic in its very inner circle.

A wise man once said: when words leave off, music begins. Those who fall for the eight poems of Saikoss will lose their speech and in return get pleased all agitations of their soul.

This is the fourth volume in World Arbiter's Japanese Traditional Music series. The World Arbiter label presents 1941 recordings of the Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai -- masters of the shamisen. An extensive anthology of traditional Japanese music was created sometime around 1941-1942 by the Kokusai Bunka Shinkôkai (KBS), International Organization for the Promotion of Culture. KBS was established under the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1934 for cultural exchange between Japan and foreign countries, representing genres such as gagaku (court music), shômyô (Buddhist chants), nô (Noh medieval theater play), heikyoku (biwa-lute narratives of battles), shakuhachi (bamboo flute music), koto (long zither music), shamisen (three-stringed lute music), sairei bayashi (instrumental music for folk festivals), komori-uta (cradle songs, lullabies), warabe-uta (children songs), and riyou (min'you) (folk songs). Considering that 1941-1942 was a most daunting time for Japan's economy and international relationships with Asian and Western countries, it is remarkable that this excellent anthology of Japanese music was ever completed and published, as it contains judiciously selected pieces from various genres performed by top-level artists at that time. The KBS' recording project is of unique historical importance and culturally valuable as a document of musical practices in traditional Japanese genres during the wartime. Few copies of this collection exist in Japan. This CD restoration is taken from a set originally belonging to Donald Richie, a writer and scholar on Japanese culture (particularly on Japanese cinema), who had given it to Ms. Beate Sirota Gordon, known for her great contribution to the establishment of Japan's Constitution during the period of U.S. occupation after WWII. Gordon's father, Leo Sirota, a piano pupil of Busoni's, fostered many excellent Japanese pianists at the Tokyo Ongaku Gakko (Academy of Music, forerunner of present-day Music Department of Tokyo National University of The Arts) during 1928-1945. Shamisen, a three stringed lute, is said to have been imported from China through Okinawa into mainland Japan (Sakai, Osaka) in the latter half of the 16th century. It began to accompany popular songs and contributed in bringing about a variety of genres of shamisen music in the early 17th century. In the late Edo period (early 19th century), small-scale shamisen vocal genres such as ogie-bushi, hauta, utazawa, and kouta were performed by geisha in ozashiki chambers. This disc includes the shamisen music enjoyed in ozashiki. Jiuta music is mainly performed in houses or ozashiki chamber in the Kansai area and said to be the oldest shamisen music genre, born soon after the instrument's arrival in Japan. Kumiuta (combined pre-existent songs) music is also heard on this disc. Full descriptions are included in a 36-page booklet in English and Japanese.

A new set of drifting electronics and meditative new age sounds from Khotin under his Area 3 project.

You can't just soak it in and sleep to it, you'll melt. From "Mood Hut" to "1080p" to "Summer Cool", Khotin, a popular Vancouver producer by the name of Dylan Khotin-Foote, has taken over the charm of the cool house coming out of Canada. The cassette, which sold out in 2017 on Bandcamp, has been reissued with 2LP! It's a lone ambient sound with a sweet layer of synthesizers drifting with dreamy ambience, a gentle beat with a hint of sanctuary, and immersive concrete sounds floating in the air. This is the culmination of the lo-fi house movement. A mysterious sound with an unfathomable depth. If you like ambient, deep house, new age, or Balearic music, this is a must have!

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome – the bonkers sound collage / 2000 skratch odyssey from the musical genius that is Kid Koala – gets the 25th Anniversary reissue treatment from Ninja Tune. A true musical visionary, Eric San aka Kid Koala combined a sensei-like approach to his craft with wild humour, giving his art an utterly inimitable quality. A dedicated turntablist (“turntablism”: the art of using turntables as a musical instrument to create original sounds, mixes, and rhythms), San recorded Carpal Tunnel Syndrome entirely on turntables, hand-cutting vinyl records onto an eight-track recorder. The result is an eccentric, joyful romp through his uniquely warped and brilliant mind.

Lindsay Olsen aka Salami Rose Joe Louis is a genre traveller multi-instrumentalist female producer and a signee to Flying Lotus's Brainfeeder label. She returns with her most personal album to date on April 25th, 2025.

Delightfully raw and heartfelt, ‘Lorings’ is a collection of songs that find SRJL displaying her vulnerability through a playful and sonically explorative lens. “I was hoping to bypass the distillation process of overthinking outside perception,” she says. “Each song feels like a significant section of my personality has been carved out and put on a platter for public consumption, which is a devastating thought [haha].”

This record she made almost entirely autonomously on her trusty Roland MV8800 workstation. For a couple of songs, SRJL invited a handful of exceptionally talented friends to collaborate: guitarist/producer Flanafi (with whom Olsen partnered for the collaborative album ‘Sarah’ in 2024); Omari Jazz (Black Decelerant); Luke Titus and Sergio Machado Plim.

Lead single “Inside” was born of a tumultuous chapter in Olsen’s life – one that she hopes never to repeat. Floating atop gently revolving Polybrute arpeggios, it’s a sombre but incredibly beautiful and powerful song. “My hope, by putting this song first on the record – and making it the first single – is that some of the songs that follow have more levity and hope, leaving this heaviness behind,” she surmises.

Elsewhere on ‘Lorings’, Olsen addresses themes of imposter syndrome, falling in love, heartbreak, the idea of family and parenthood, superficiality, her frustrations with the music industry (“I dunno the way… For I cannot play… The game”). She does revisit more familiar tropes too as exemplified by “Motorway (feat. Flanafi)”. “I feel like the world is being confronted with an enormous lack of humanity at the moment and it feels impossible to comprehend how people can be so cruel,” she declares. 

Detroit dub techno and ambient dub legend Rod Modell returns with a reissue of his 2014 Deepchord masterpiece on Soma Quality Recordings. Across two weighty yet spectral cuts, the release embodies his lineage to Basic Channel while expanding into a uniquely immersive emotional space. Rarely has Modell so explicitly foregrounded spectral vocal textures, marking this as a work that broadens his expressive scope. A true masterstroke—poised between meditation and the club, equally attuned to the shadows of the midnight city and the depths of inner emotion.

Not only have Chicago’s electronic trio Purelink released on labels such as Lillerne Tape Club and Naff, they’ve also contributed a mix for Resident Advisor, marking them as one of the city’s most essential new acts. Their much-discussed release of the year on revered imprint Peak Oil is finally in stock. Centered on serene, minimal chillbient, the record delicately traces faint light seeping into deserted urban spaces and lingering echoes at the edges of a world that has lost its words. Textures dissolved in delay and reverb resonate like distant prayers drifting between city and self, while faint melodies and the sway of sub-bass create a deeply intimate immersion. A work that hovers between ambient and post-club, standing as Purelink’s poetic resistance and a defining statement of their aesthetic.

Active between 1987 and 1997 out of Leeds, UK, cult unit Drug Free America was led by Brian Moss of Vicious Pink alongside the late Steve Dixon and Hayley Windsor. Their sound evolved from early industrial/techno roots into darker, post-punk-leaning experiments. Now arriving via Noir Age, this archival release draws from their 1995 CD Narcotica, including the sprawling title cut “Baby Doll and the Dolphin Burger.” Here, cyberdelic electronics collide with shadowed vocals across tracks that stand as strange, singular constructions. Capturing both the dreams and menace of the city, these recordings channel the heat of the UK underground into the present. Limited to 200 copies.

Veteran avant-garde artist Little Annie teams up with South Florida producer Richard Vergez’s project Night Foundation for Inertia, a 7-inch release on Noir Age. A distinctive dark ambient single where their sensibilities subtly intersect, the A-side layers smooth bass and sustained tones with Annie’s restrained vocals, evoking an urban desolation, while the B-side offers a dub-inflected counterpart, steeped in reverb and spatial treatments that extend the track’s afterglow. Mastered by none other than KRAMER, famed for his work with Daniel Johnston, the release is further elevated by its visual and physical presentation: limited art editions, silkscreen packaging, and inserts that merge sound and image into a singular experience. Strictly limited to 300 copies.

Born in Bangkok but rooted in Vancouver’s underground scene, the little-known legend Hussain Bokhari presents his debut album, proudly released on local ambient-dance institution Mood Hut. A deft blend of bedroom pop, lo-fi textures, and Balearic-infused guitar and synth work, the record shimmers with understated intimacy. The pillowy sonics of “Pull Me Up” and the Thai-language vocals of “Bangkok Boy” evoke a nostalgia that traverses both time and place. A superb soundscape for quiet hours, drifting between self, city, and memory.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce Melopea, presenting two new pieces highlighting the incredible voice of Amelia Cuni (1958-2024), the great Italian singer, based in Berlin in later life, whose mastery of the classical Indian dhrupad developed in parallel with a commitment to contemporary experimental approaches. After two stunning archival releases documenting traditional dhrupad performances in India in the 1990s (BT079 and BT092), the two side-long pieces here embody the freedom with which Cuni explored new contexts and settings for her singing. Both make use of a long recording of Cuni singing the pentatonic Raag Bhoop (or Bhopali) made in 2012 by her partner Werner Durand in Berlin. ‘Melopea’ began from Cuni and Durand’s superimposition of this recording with violinist Silvia Tarozzi and cellist Deborah Walker’s performance of Éliane Radigue’s ‘Occam River II’.

Inspired by the beauty of this chance encounter (and other experiments with non-synchronous collaboration during the pandemic years), Tarozzi and Walker recorded independently, without hearing Cuni’s voice but ‘having her present in memory’. Tarozzi and Walker’s bowed strings places Cuni’s magisterial performance in a new context, emphasising, as Radigue commented upon hearing the initial layering of her piece with Cuni’s voice, a shared ‘searching toward the partials, overtones, these natural constituents of acoustical sounds in their richness’. Beginning with whispered bowed harmonics, the violin and cello swap the stability of dhrupad’s traditional tanpura drone for a slowly evolving, uneasy web of harmonic interactions recalling some of Harley Gaber’s work, sometimes sitting on dissonances for long periods or allowing changing interference patterns to come to the fore. Primarily focusing on her lower register, Cuni’s performance demonstrates her mastery of microtonal pitch subtleties, elegant sweeping glissandi and meditatively unhurried pacing.

The continuation of the same recording by Cuni forms the foundation of ‘Bhoop-Murchana’, with Anthea Caddy on cello and Werner Durand on soprano saxophone. In contrast to the randomised layering of the first piece, here Durand and Caddy have carefully selected pitches based on the raag Cuni sings, using the ‘Murchana’ form, which uses the constituent notes of the raag as tonics of new raags, retaining the same interval structure. Both players who have developed tones of striking depth and harmonic purity on their instruments, Caddy and Durand’s patient long tones are simultaneously rigorously grounded in the physical properties of sound and possessed of an immaterial, floating quality. Combined with Cuni’s voice and, near the piece’s end, her contributions on hammered and plucked tanpura, the effect borders on miraculous. To surrender to this music is like slipping into an onsen pool, feeling the instantaneous release of every tension. Accompanied by liner notes from Durand, Tarozzi and Walker, Melopea is both a moving tribute to the profound art of Amelia Cuni and, for the uninitiated, a perfect introduction to it.

Indonesian duo KUNTARI make music that's so distinctive, they had to devise their own genre: primal-core. On 'MUTU BETON', multi-instrumentalist Tesla Manaf and percussionist Rio Abror dialog with both history and their tropical surroundings in Bandung, West Java's mountainous capital. Using the cornet and hulusi, a free reed instrument made from a bottle gourd and bamboo pipes, Manaf echoes the bellows of local elephants, orangutans and rhinos, grazing Abror's ancestral Indonesian rhythms with potent overdriven riffs and evocative microtonal chimes. It's music that's profoundly atmospheric and simultaneously raw, recorded live to fully encapsulate the dynamic and deeply human interaction between the two seasoned players. There are elements of sludge metal, noise and post-hardcore, references to traditional folk music and jazz, and gestures towards sound art, 20th century minimalism and dark ambient, but what KUNTARI do is completely idiosyncratic - it's hardly surprising it needed a similarly unique categorization.

Manaf started KUNTARI as a solo project, debuting in 2020 with 'Black Shirt Attracts More Feather' and animating his nimble instrumental improvisations with bold electronic processes and booming synthetic drums. And by the time he recorded 2022's acclaimed 'Last Boy Picked', his approach had evolved significantly; prioritizing organic sounds, he played prepared cornet and piano, bringing in additional percussionists to help devise a ritualistic rhythm section. Abror was one of those performers, and ended up sticking around, playing on 2023's furious 'LARYNX/STRIDULA', the stylistic precursor for 'MUTU BETON'. At this stage, the duo have racked up a litany of accolades and collaborated with a spectrum of like-minded artists, from noise deity Keiji Haino to fellow Indonesian free-thinker Rully Shabara, who's best known for his work with Senyawa and avant-garde supergroup OSMIUM. 'MUTU BETON' plays like a lap of honor, showcasing their most kinetic and most feral recordings to date.

On 'Parai', a two-part composition made for Singapore-based artist Priyageetha Dia's multimedia installation LAMENT H.E.A.T, KUNTARI surround loose, rattling polyrhythms with blood-curdling, animalistic calls and industrial strength chugs from Manaf's prepared guitar. The artwork honors indentured laborers forced to extract rubber in Southeast Asia, and KUNTARI's response is an incisive critique of colonialism, celebrating the region's ancient rhythmic forms and sharpening their edges as they barrel into the future. Upsetting the logic of academic American minimalism, KUNTARI disrupt winding Reichian xylophone, glockenspiel and marimba repetitions on 'Kerak Terusi', wielding swinging ceremonial thuds from Manaf's Rebana, a cow skin drum that often accompanies Indonesian Islamic rituals.

They confront local sonorities even more directly on 'Miamch', a commission the duo made for Yogyakarta's Festival Kebudayaan, dueling on saron, a single-octave metallophone, and a Javanese gamelan set, and don't just follow the expected path. The familiarity is soon replaced with eccentricity as eerie resonances and reverberations sweep across the rhythmelodic patterns. Rough-edged technoid patterns are bent into new shapes on the abrasive 'Paniscus', and on 'Bessing', KUNTARI do their best to recreate the singular atmosphere of a local trance ritual, interrupting howling spirit voices and jangling chimes with blackened, grindcore-inspired riffs. KUNTARI surpass even their own high standards with 'MUTU BETON', folding history and geography in on itself and suggesting a trailblazing Indonesian cultural movement that's not restricted by highbrow Western conventions. It's not just automation and technology that drives progression, it's interaction and observation. And there's nothing more primal, or revolutionary, than that.

In 2017 Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer traveled together to the Åland Islands (an archipelago that is host to around 6,500 islands) in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland. They headed to the islands with the intention of helping two friends (mother/daughter duo Jannika/Sage Reed) barn raise a small inn named Hotel Svala in Kumlinge (a municipality consisting of a small group of islands and a population of about 320). The idea was that, once completed, Svala would host artist residencies and workshop programs, creating a direct link between the islands and the USA. The concept of recording music there came about as Honer & Chiu learned more and more about the islands. They were taken by the serene and strange quality of the place. The sun doesn’t set in the summer (and barely rises in the winter). The network of miniature islands is traversed by ferry which, according to Chiu, “casts a surreal horizontal movement through space and time, with islands shifting into and out of periphery, totally still and calm, yet always in motion.” In 2019 they were awarded a grant from the Department of Culture to return and perform a concert at the Kumlinge Kyrka, a 14th century medieval church adorned with incredible frescos. The concert was recorded and became source material – along with improvisations on viola and electronics, pipe organ, pump organ, piano, synthesizers, field recordings and voice memos, all captured across both their trips at various locations on the archipelago – from which they meticulously crafted a post-script in the form of 'Recordings from the Åland Islands'. Easing listeners into the feeling of the place, the album’s opening track “In Åland Air” is a dream-like haze that slows time, invoking the feeling of descending by plane onto the archipelago, a place Chiu recalls as “lush with a gentle, brackish breeze...” On “Snåcko,” a track named for the island next to Kumlinge, the music becomes a transportive portrait, painting in sound “the romantic and gentle atmosphere of the forests in Åland — a place where your eyes slowly adjust to the rainbow-colored moss covering granite boulders. Walking around, you find the forest floor blossoming with blueberries, currants, and flowers...” The longest and darkest movement in the collection, “Archipelago,” encapsulates “the experience of being surrounded in the vast network of islands” with a dense cloud of slowly modulating string layers, improvised by Honer in an empty swimming pool at Svala. “The heaviness of the track,” says Honer, “is a reference to the deep darkness experienced during the Nordic winter days.” But the plaintive atmosphere of that penultimate piece is succeeded with the triumphant final movement of the album, “Under the Midnight Sun,” which bellows forth like a vibrant chorus of melodious sighs, echoing classic sounds from Jon Hassell’s 'Vernal Equinox', or Franco Battiato’s 'Clic', or Brian Eno’s 'Another Green World'. Just as two eyes, two ears, and two halves of a brain work together to create a memory, on their duo debut, Honer and Chiu’s collective pallet produces a vivid three-dimensional hyperreality of painterly tones and textures – bright and kaleidoscopic, but with a deeply warm, earthen resonance. The music evokes a powerful sense of place, transporting and immersing listeners in the other-world of the Åland Islands. And though they achieve this in beautifully natural, organic manner, Chiu & Honer agree this album is quite unlike anything they’ve made before, and likely unlike anything they’ll make in the future. ...about Chiu & Honer... The combination of modular synthesizer and viola is an uncommon one, but Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer manage to create a distinctive dyad that comes together with grace and truth. They’ve accomplished this by bringing much more than their respective axes to the table. Years of collaboration, cohabitation, shared experience, and separate but equally inspired commitments to utilitarian cultural work bind their disparate timbres together into a singular aesthetic reality. The two artists met, appropriately, as members of a large ensemble performing Terry Riley’s “In C,” for an annual concert organized by Bitchin Bajas at Chicago modern music hub Constellation. Honer & Chiu had been living and working in Chicago for a long time, both active members of the notoriously interconnected improvisational and experimental music scenes, but they were somehow previously unintroduced. Chiu’s musical CV to that point included work with bands like Icy Demons and Chandeliers, but he was mostly known for his visual and graphic design work as Some All None. Honer had primarily worked as an instructor in Chicago, as well as a member of the ensemble Quartet Datura. In 2014, a year after their first collaboration, together, they decided to migrate to Los Angeles to continue developing their respective careers and crafts in sunnier climes. Relocation to Los Angeles has proven to be fruitful for both artists. Honer has since become a first-call session player for the likes of Adrian Younge and Beyoncé. She’s also played on recordings by Chloe x Halle, Angel Olsen, Fleet Foxes, and Stanley Clarke, among others, including five recordings with Grammy nominations. Along with her session work, Honer is on the music faculty at California State University. Chiu has expanded his visual work in numerous capacities, in addition to becoming an active intersectional community organizer, and refocusing his musical practice to electronic music composition and sound art. He’s also become an Assistant Professor at Otis College of Art & Design; has exhibited/performed at The Getty Center, LACMA, and other distinguished locales; has become a resident programmer for Dublab; and has generated a strong unit of regular musical collaborators that includes Celia Hollander, Booker Stardrum, Ben Babbitt, Dustin Wong, Takako Minekawa, and Sam Prekop. Chiu has also designed album artwork for several International Anthem releases, including Angel Bat Dawid's Transition East, Dos Santos's City of Mirrors, Jeff Parker's Forfolks, and JP's Myspace Beats.

Ben LaMar Gay’s de facto debut album, 'Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun', was our attempt to introduce the legendary Chicago composer / improviser / renaissance man to the rest of the world with a compilation of tracks from 7 albums he made over 7 years (though he hadn’t yet made the effort to actually release). The material showcases Gay’s penchant for genre-hopping – from Steve Reich-ian soundscape voyages to Don Cherry-esque polyrhythm treks to Jorge Ben-style vocal-and-string earworms – while keeping his singular musical voice in focus.

In the years since its release, this long OOP collection has become a touchstone, foreshadowing the breadth and scope of Gay’s output since. The songs-between-the-songs warped Soul Americana madness and beauty of 'Open Arms To Open Us', the unhinged long form freedom of 'Certain Reveries' – each fresh mode would defy expectation if without the context established by Downtown Castles. To quote our OG announcement of the album: “to call it ‘eclectic’ would only scratch the surface. This music is everything.”

The IA11 Edition of this LP comes with an IARC2025 obi strip plus a 4-page insert booklet featuring new (old) photos and new liner notes by musician (and longtime BLG friend/collaborator) Gira Dahnee.

Ten years. Ten years of listening, searching, digging, sharing. Ten years of putting out records we felt mattered—because they told a story. Of a place, a moment, an impulse. Ten years of believing that music, especially the kind that doesn’t fit into any box, deserves more than just attention: it deserves care, time, and deep listening.

Bongo Joe started in Geneva, in a shop that became a label, in a city far more complex than it first appears. Beneath its polished banking façade, Geneva is layered and unpredictable. Beneath the luxury storefronts, the UN buildings, and the watch boutiques, thrives a unique scene shaped by migration, cultural collisions, political struggle, and dissonant sound. It’s here that we learned to improvise, adapt, and stay independent.

This is where the label was born—above all, to put music back at the center, in a time when everything moves too fast, gets monetized, sliced up, and repackaged. In that landscape, we believe a label should remain a space for curation, for storytelling, for quiet resistance — a place where we suggest rather than impose.

Over the past ten years, we’ve built a singular catalogue — a mosaic of archival revivals, contemporary projects, and unexpected encounters. Three main threads have shaped it.

First, the compilation of music from the past. Not to claim it, but to keep it moving. To shed light on forgotten repertoires, marginal histories, musical legacies too rich to be overlooked. To help them exist again, with dignity, and reconnect with new listeners who might never have had access otherwise.

Second, international collaborations. From Geneva, we’ve woven bonds with artists from all over the world — groups from Istanbul, Buenos Aires, London, Baku, Bogotá, Lilongwe, Les Gonaïves, or Amsterdam. Records crafted with love and boldness, in collaboration with like-minded labels, passionate curators, and artists who share our spirit. That international dimension makes us proud — it proves that you can create, exchange, and share sound sincerely, even from a city not exactly known as a musical capital.

And then there’s our local scene. Geneva, always. Because it’s where we live, where we grew up, and where we still believe in a city with a unique voice — full of friction, contradictions, and underground energy. We’ve supported projects from experimental circuits, squats, and clubs. Through our sub-label Les Disques Magnétiques, we’ve expanded the spectrum without losing the thread: defending the margins, giving space to those who don’t fit anywhere else.

Bongo Joe is also a musician. The label takes its name from George “Bongo Joe” Coleman (1923–1999), a street percussionist from Texas who stayed true to his independence for over thirty years. Turning down the offers of formal venues, he chose instead to play in the streets — banging out rhythms on an oil drum with raw charisma. His only album, recorded in 1968 in San Antonio, remains one of our most cherished records. Reissued by our friends at Mississippi Records, it carries a DIY spirit, radical freedom, and lyrical boldness far ahead of its time — a guiding light that continues to inspire us.

Bongo Joe is also a collective story. It’s about people. A team that grew over the years: from Cyril and Vincent at the helm to a tight-knit crew — Juliette, Quentin, Margot, Laurent, Baptiste. Together, we’ve kept this strange, handmade machine running. We’ve hand-stamped sleeves, lost test pressings, pressed the wrong masters on CD, found test pressings again, chased down funding, hauled stacks of records to the post office by bike, crossed our fingers for pressings to arrive on time, cursed at customs delays, botched digital releases, and felt a thrill watching “our” bands play on the stages of major festivals and the most forward-thinking clubs. We’ve been through chaos and joy. Together, we’ve made it this far. And with nearly 150 records in the catalogue, we look back on the road travelled with a mix of pride and disbelief.

This compilation isn’t a summary. It’s not a best of. It’s a trace. A selection among many possible ones. A snapshot of what we’ve tried to do since 2015: believe in music as connection, as memory, as compass. Thank you to everyone who’s supported, followed, or inspired us. Thanks to the institutions who’ve backed us. Thanks to our longtime partners: bookers, fellow labels, record stores, publicists, distributors, printers, engravers, pressing plants, sound engineers, photographers, designers. And most of all, thank you to the artists — without whom none of this would mean anything.

Ten years is a little, and a lot. We’re not done yet.

The Peak Oil-affiliated False Aralia return with a class 3rd session in transit from Sade-esque holographic dub soul to rugged experiments in compression a la Torsten Profrock and Topdown Dialectic.

In the glistening wake of their first batch of 12”s by Zero Key & Selfsame, the label double their tally with two sterling new works swimming in refined space between deepest ambient soul and rudely tactile delicacies. Label bosses Brian Foote (Peak Oil, Kranky) and pal Izaak Schlossman keep the vibe meticulously on course with the first introduction to Externalism, whose sound palette suggests it may well be the same character behind Topdown Dialectic, but could be a collective for all we know - and that enigma is a key part of the pleasure of these EPs.

Comparisons with Sade are kinda inevitable in a standout first bit of soulfully blissed syllables swirled on a bassline straight out of the Rhythm & Sound playbook, suspended in thizzing contrails- pure hair-kissing styles - whilst the rest of the EP appears to be progressively smudged versions of that opening gambit, blurring the vox into the dub aether on the 2nd, and dialling up the bass in gritty Dynamo/Various Artists/T++ offbeats in the 3rd, and ultimately into shifty, subaquatic coruscations on the 4th. Magic.

Tip!

in the middle of it we instantiate false aralia: a series of recordings growing in all directions, cataloging the work of a group of north american collaborators centered around the studio practices of izaak schlossman (of aught, s transporter, loveshadow etc.) and facilitated by brian foote (of peak oil, kranky, etc.). with this outlet we hope to provide useful tools for dance and avenues for intentional listening.

the first release, ‘zero key’, explores valences of an idea as it slips, as would a thought or a cloud, into something else entirely across its four tracks of recursive microhouse rhythms and hallucinated dub spatializations. foregrounding its most melodic state, its most percussive, and two points between, the versions cut an indeterminate and continuous process into discrete objects that invite repurposing, layering, and other nonlinear methods of evaluation. played through, it may be interpreted as an emerging, or a coming-to-light, as a soft vocal figure develops a tougher rhythmic architecture that eventually occludes its prior form entirely. each of zero key’s facets spurs a parallel investigation into its internal logic of patterning and form.